


where i follow

by orphan_account



Series: all to see you once more [1]
Category: Kuroko no Basuke | Kuroko's Basketball
Genre: Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Happy Ending, M/M, Pining, Reincarnation, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-08
Updated: 2016-08-08
Packaged: 2018-08-07 09:47:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,237
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7710370
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The fate of the world consistently does what it wants with Shuuzou’s life, and the past few lifetimes have followed a bitter pattern to a tee: find, fall, lose, find, fall, lose, find, fall, lose. Heartbreak is worn like a second skin and it hurts to admit, but he’s getting used to that swooping feeling of his entire chest squeezing too tight with <i>what could have been</i>s.</p>
            </blockquote>





	where i follow

Goodbyes are always hard, but Shuuzou has had multiple lifetimes to get used to them.

(Reunions, anyway, are always harder.)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
There are lifetimes where he thinks he might be able to escape the pain of unfulfilled endings (conclusions drawn out, the furthest thing from happy). Contrary to whatever the rom-coms have to say, it always hurts. It never feels  _okay_  or  _manageable_  dealing with loss on twenty thousand different levels of impact and Shuuzou has lost count of how many times he’s woken up in a new world, a new universe, feeling the telltale dread of having to find and lose him (always him) again and again and again.  
  
The finding is never the issue. Tatsuya is startlingly transparent most, if not all, of the time. He reveals himself, always, right when Shuuzou finds himself on the brink of giving up. And unlike Shuuzou, whose mind and heart race right upon contact, nearly crumbling beneath the weight of too, too many accumulated memories, Tatsuya is _always_ found and _always_ as a stranger. Repetition is crazy and only there where Shuuzou least wants it.  
  
The losing is never the issue either; at least, not anymore. It’s happened more times than Shuuzou can count and at this point, he’s given up. The fate of the world consistently does what it wants with Shuuzou’s life, and the past few lifetimes have followed a bitter pattern to a tee: find, fall, lose, find, fall, lose, find, fall, lose. Heartbreak is worn like a second skin and it hurts to admit, but he’s getting used to that swooping feeling of his entire chest squeezing too tight with _what could have been_ s.  
  
So, it’s bittersweet. But he’s used to that too. There are some lifetimes sewn delicately between two tumultuous ones where they do almost,  _almost_  fall in love—where it isn’t exclusively one-sided yearning of a hardened heart. They fall in like, and it’s sweet, sometimes too short, sometimes stretched out over decades before it fades, like much else, into _used to_ s and _long ago_ s.   
  
The issue is the falling. The reacquainting. Forcing himself to come to terms again and again and again and again with the way Tatsuya’s smile will never stop rendering him breathless, unfairly so sometimes. He hates this part the most, the part where distance ebbs away into almost nothing but it’s something Shuuzou can’t extinguish entirely. It’s always too close, almost there, just a hair short. Every gap that he could have filled, should have filled—mistakes and sutras learned the hard way from past lives accumulating, but still _not_ enough.

It’s always the distance that gets them. Someone else always beats Shuuzou to the punch.

There are rarely instances where he can get rid of distance as a whole.  
  
One lifetime isn’t long enough for that.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
There are moments when he wants to ask,  _remember when?_  And he catches himself every single time, cuts himself off until the words die on the tip of his tongue along with the joy of that memory. It’s useless, stupid, futile, trying to salvage something precious shared between two on his own. It gets tiring, and Shuuzou is nothing if not too tired for his body.

_Remember when remember when remember when remember when_

It’d be nice if he didn’t have to remember anymore.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
When he wakes up one morning, he’s fifteen again, curled up on the floor of a nearly empty bedroom next to a single suitcase. This life’s memories come to him slowly in the time that he spends reorienting himself, and then he remembers—he’s fifteen, his dad’s sick, and he’s leaving too much behind in Tokyo.   
  
On the plane, he dreams about a myriad of colors and a half-full sink reflecting a gaze he could never forget. When he wakes, his neck’s sore and the butterflies in his stomach are alive and anticipating, like they know that this life will be no different from the past trials.  
  
But for a short, short while, nothing is the same. He lands in Los Angeles with a backpack and a suitcase on him. The first stop is the hospital, where the interpreter translates medical jargon into something understandable and Shuuzou has never been great at English, but he doesn’t need much to make out the _critical_ ,  _three months_ ,  _intensive care_.   
  
He, his mother, and his two siblings sit around dad’s bed like they’re forming a barrier between dad and the rest of the world. They don’t say much. Mom makes jokes and the kids are busy fighting over a cup of pudding. Dad asks about basketball, says something about how the high school teams here aren’t bad.  
  
Shuuzou smiles. “Yeah,” he says, and it feels like the first word he’s spoken in eternities.   
  
There was a lifetime once, handfuls of ages ago, when he met Tatsuya in the Los Angeles streets amidst too much trouble for two fifteen-year-old boys. Shuuzou had been on his way to the hospital then, too, and trouble had sparked up along the way and from it, Shuuzou had earned a couple of bruises (the first in a long while) and an understanding that this was only the beginning. That one ended like the others: they never had to say goodbye and heartbreak was nothing tangible, but something stung about being the best man for someone he’d loved over centuries.   
  
This one’s different. There’s nothing but a dull ache that he attributes to his dad, his family. The butterflies have quieted down too, like they’re as uncertain as he is. In the end, the day comes to a close. Sun filters in through the window and his little brother and little sister fall asleep on either side of his father.  
  
“Will you be okay here?” his dad asks, and it’s a broader question that Shuuzou has rehearsed answers to. “It’s a big change.”  
  
Back when he used to get into fights for no reason but to prove that the world couldn’t hurt him any more than he could hurt himself, he didn’t have friends and he liked to pretend that he didn’t have family either.

Things are different now. In more ways than one.  
  
“Worried I won’t make friends, old man?” Shuuzou replies, and he musters up a look of indignation.  
  
His dad smiles at that, and Shuuzou doesn’t follow-up with anything more. “You aren’t the most agreeable kid,” comes the reply, and Shuuzou almost balks in protest. “But you’ll be fine. You always manage to find a good friend somewhere.” 

Somewhere, Shuuzou figures, has to be around the corner. Somewhere, Shuuzou wants to say, always ends up hurting more than having no one at all.

“Better pray,” he says instead, and his dad laughs.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Los Angeles seems empty and lackluster this time around. 

And for too long, maybe.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

America spans 3.8 million square miles with over 320 million people. It’s almost excessive how unfathomable the country really is in terms of size, and when Shuuzou walks to receive his diploma at the end of four grueling years of university, he’s almost inclined to believe that it might be  _too big_.   
  
Like much else, he supposes reincarnation has its exceptions too.   
  
The past few years have been quiet. Modest.   
  
They haven’t been too unbearable.  
  
But something is noticeably missing.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
(Once, he resolved not to fall in love. It was a hard-earned conclusion after too many losses and Shuuzou had decided right then and there that the only way to break this repeat cycle was to prevent a need for repetition, a need for  _victory_  in the most literal sense.   
  
And he was almost successful. Almost fell in love with a boy with a bright red gaze that bore into him, imploring and always asking for permission. Almost fell in love with a boy that didn’t know how to drop honorifics, that seemed puzzled every time Shuuzou leaned in to kiss him. _Nijimura-_ san, he would say, and Shuuzou would grin—an easy grin, how fucking incredible, he’d thought it to be almost impossible to smile so cheaply around anyone who wasn’t Tatsuya—and lace their fingers wordlessly. Almost, almost, almost until in moments, in seconds, everything he’d strived for became undone.  
  
“Shuu,” Tatsuya had said then, when they bumped into each other in the halls of the Tokyo Metropolitan Gymnasium. It’d been months since they’d last made contact, let alone spoke to each other. “Good luck.”   
  
“Yeah,” Shuuzou replied. He made to leave, nearly jolted when he felt fingers wrap around his wrist in a grip too firm, too uncharacteristic for the way Tatsuya smiled. “Need something?”  
  
“Nothing.” And then, when loose ends tangled into hapless knots: “I just wanted to make sure you were okay.”

He’d felt sorry then, for having a heart that betrayed everything his mind and body wanted—for having a stupid, godforsaken heart that only knew repetition.

“I am,” he remembers saying. And he remembers thinking, too. Remembers the way the thought had wavered in his mind like a ripple: _You know I always manage_.)

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
There are very few things he hates more than weddings.   
  
And in the two years following graduation, he has been to almost too many of them. To the point that it might as well be a form of torture, corporal punishment. To the point that he can memorize and categorize each type of person that approaches him to ask  _where’s your date?_  
  
To the point that going to another wedding on his day off, all while juggling too many things in not enough hands, just trying with a little too much desperation to get on the right subway train—  
  
Coffee splishes and splashes from his Styrofoam cup and lands on his shoe, narrowly evading his dress shirt.  
  
“Jesus fuck,” Shuuzou exhales sharply.   
  
—it’s the last fucking thing he wants to be doing.  
  
Shuuzou bites the inside of his cheek and counts to three. He pictures pristine mountain valleys and the sound of light rain falling atop wayward streams. Dewdrops. Fresh coffee. Zen. Zen zen zen zen—  
  
Zen, except there’s this guy wearing gaudy sunglasses approaching him from far away, looking too elated to see him considering uh, well, they’re total strangers. Zen, except that guy is saying bullshit now, something like  _I’ve been looking for you everywhere!_  in fluent Japanese and oh, what the fuck, is he literally touching Shuuzou’s ass?  
  
Zen, except now they’re hugging, and it’s happening too quickly and too slowly at the same time, and when the guy pulls away and says  _I thought you were someone else_ , Shuuzou drops his coffee and nearly starts a fight in the middle of the Los Angeles streets.  
  
At that moment, Shuuzou realizes something: his wallet is missing. And the guy is booking it, literally speed-walking through LA’s human traffic like his life depends on it and Shuuzou wasn’t a basketball captain for  _nothing_  so catching up is—okay, still relatively hard. But he’d rather die than have to admit defeat to a no-good thief; his teammates would be disappointed if he didn’t have _some_ fighting spirit left in him, after all.  
  
When his hand grips the stranger’s shoulder and the shoulder sags in defeat, however, Shuuzou isn’t expecting a lot. Then the sunglasses come off—

“Listen,” the man says in perfect English now, “I’m _so_ sorry and…”

There’s an apology and an explanation he couldn’t give two shits about falling onto deaf ears because Shuuzou is looking straight into a gaze that he couldn’t forget. Not even over the course of too many lifetimes.  
  
He drops his hand and _Tatsuya_ looks puzzled.  
  
“Excuse me?” he asks, and this time, he’s the one who squeezes Shuuzou’s shoulder. “Are you okay?”  
  
“Shit,” Shuuzou says eloquently. “ _God damn it._.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
There are worse things that could happen on this planet.   
  
America is a big country. Chance encounters are highly likely and highly improbable at the same time and Shuuzou has come to acknowledge this time and time again.  
  
At fifteen, he woke up in this new life and felt like he’d been here from the start. Adjustment had been nothing but a practiced procedure. He’d braced himself to stumble into Tatsuya again, to have to spend years of his youth pining and pining for something unspeakably sacred, untouchable. Instead, he’d waited years for nothing, let go of that something, and right when he’d given up on it altogether—  
  
It’s almost funny. Tatsuya’s inhuman grip on unexpected collisions, _shitty timing_? Hilarious.  
  
What’s not funny is how their fateful encounter has played out. There’s someone higher in the heavens laughing at Shuuzou’s suffering, no doubt. The fact that he has to sit through a wedding with a would-be thief sitting next to him, shoulder and thigh pressed against his own?  
  
“Who do you know?” Tatsuya, whispers into Shuuzou’s ears, too close for comfort. “Bride or groom?”  
  
Shuuzou grits his teeth. “Both.”  
  
“Oh.” Tatsuya hums, thoughtful, and it’s effortless how he flashes a perfectly constructed smile at an elderly woman who looks over her shoulder to shush them. How do you know them?”   
  
Purposefully, Shuuzou leans two centimeters away. He pulls at his tie, aggravated. “Kinda dated back in college. Old friend.”  
  
“Which one?” There’s a knowing exchange of glances when Shuuzou doesn’t respond right away. “ _Both_  of them?”  
  
Shuuzou nods. Grimly.  
  
“Heartbreaking. You lost both of your partners to _them_ ,” Tatsuya says through a gasp. “Don’t worry, Shuu. I’ll be a stellar fake boyfriend so you don’t look too lonely.”   
  
The familiarity feels like a punch to the gut. They’ve known each other for less than six hours and already it feels like the culmination of too many lives spent together.  
  
“Don’t call me that,” Shuuzou mutters.   
  
Tatsuya smiles fondly but doesn’t make any promises.  
  
The rest of the wedding is excruciatingly long and by the time the reception rolls around, the promises of free food aren’t enough to hold Shuuzou’s attention. He grabs Tatsuya’s wrist wordlessly, drags him out of the small chapel and releases him as soon as the doors close behind them and they’re in the company of chain-smokers hiding out behind church, tapping cigarette ash carefully to avoid dirtying their dresses and suits.  
  
“Done?” Tatsuya asks.  
  
“Yeah,” he replies, and his mind’s conflicted now. The greater part of him wants to leave it at that, write Tatsuya off as a stranger so he doesn’t have to toil over the process of falling in love for nothing all over again. The cycle has to end sooner or later and Shuuzou is staring to get the feeling that it’s his prerogative. But the rest of him, the small sliver of idealism left untouched, not detoxed by growing up too quickly from the get-go, wants to try again. And the reminders of heartache and heartbreak do nothing to dispel that feeling. “You can go home.” 

Looking back, his heart had acted on impulse, asking someone who was supposed to be a stranger to be his fake date to a hell of a wedding. Shuuzou almost grimaces. He’s too soft, too open to Tatsuya—too hopeful to bring him back into his life.  
  
“Great. So we’re even now?”   
  
“Yeah.”  
  
“What an anticlimactic goodbye,” Tatsuya comments wryly. He offers half of a smile before his gaze flickers from Shuuzou’s face to the crosswalk behind him. “Is that it?”  
  
Shuuzou almost frowns. “Do you want something? Quit talking in circles.”  
  
At that, Tatsuya laughs. It’s a soft sound, sticky too, and it gets caught in the gaps of Shuuzou’s ribcage effortlessly. “Nothing,” he says, and with that, he jams his hands into the pockets of his pants, taking careful steps past Shuuzou and toward the crosswalk. “I just thought I might miss you, Shuu.”   
  
His pulse quickens and he hates himself for it. “Are you always this annoying?”  
  
There’s a contemplative look on Tatsuya’s face as he shrugs. “Not to people I barely know,” he admits, “but you don’t feel like a stranger at all.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Goodbyes are always hard, but this time, they are far from permanent.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
It takes seventeen days before they run into each other again.   
  
The circumstances are just as cliché—a mismatched encounter at the same street corner, except this time Shuuzou’s coffee actually lands on his shirt and it’s Tatsuya who offers a wad of napkins out of the generosity in his soul only to find that it’s hardly a random act of kindness.  
  
“Wow.”  
  
“Don’t—”  
  
“It must be  _fate_ , Shuu.”  
  
“God.” And then: “Don’t call me that.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
What he means to say is, _You don’t know the first thing about fate._

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
God has a taste for irony. It’s right after Shuuzou gets accustomed to a life without Tatsuya that Tatsuya tumbles in, guileless and charming as always, and for once in his life (lives?) playing the role of pursuer rather than the pursued.   
  
It’s teasing, the way he closes any physical gaps between himself and Shuuzou whenever possible, bringing up their first fateful encounter and treating it like a proposal in it of itself. For Shuuzou, it’s easier to believe that it legitimately, genuinely is fate. It’s been written into their chemical makeup, the stars, the lines on their palms—  
  
Every “run-in” they have is intentional, and Shuuzou knows it. Knows that someday, he’ll fall harder than he did the past life and the tables will turn, and he’ll probably end up as best man to Tatsuya’s wedding (again).

(Last time, Tatsuya wore a white tuxedo. It was insufferably tacky but Shuuzou’s heart still clenches at the thought.)  
  
But he doesn’t know when any of that’ll happen. So until then, Shuuzou lapses into normalcy. He bides his time, lets himself fall into a routine of comfort. Sometimes he even humors Tatsuya’s worst jokes. Other times he’ll reciprocate a touch (or, rather, he won’t rebuff it).  
  
“You know,” Tatsuya starts one day in the midst of another lazy hour spent wasting each other’s time at a late-night diner, “I had a weird dream last night.”  
  
Shuuzou hums, noncommittal. “Yeah?”  
  
“Yeah. I couldn’t keep up with it. It felt like I was reading through a history book about five hundred different people but those five hundred people were all… me?”  
  
“Conceited as always.”  
  
“But you were there too. Every single time.”  
  
It takes a second for the idea to process before Shuuzou nearly chokes on a fry. “Uh-huh,” he says instead, and in the process accidentally drowns another fry in a puddle of ketchup. “Like you were living five hundred different lives,” he clarifies.  
  
“ _Exactly._ ” Tatsuya eats the drenched fry, because no one is perfect. “Nothing seemed out-of-place. Everything was seamless, like a bunch of movies about the same person set in the different universes. Like Indiana Jones!”

“That’s not how the movies go, moron.”

“It was crazy, really.”  
  
Shuuzou scowls. “Was that it?”  
  
“Curious?”  
  
“Don’t answer.”  
  
“Don’t sulk, Shuu.” Tatsuya flashes a smile and Shuuzou pretends it doesn’t nearly blind him. “I don’t remember anything specific. I just woke up feeling content.”  
  
Shuuzou purses his lips. “What’s your point?”  
  
“I think with us, everything’s familiar already for some reason. My brain thinks I’ve known you for years already,” Tatsuya teases, and Shuuzou forces a scoff. “Maybe we became old together in a past life.”  
  
There’s a momentary lull. Shuuzou doesn’t elaborate, doesn’t go into detail about how they’ve never made it past forty before losing contact with each other and there’s no reason this lifetime won’t be the same.   
  
“Maybe we were  _lovers_  in a past life,” Tatsuya continues.  
  
At that, Shuuzou laughs to himself. Too forlornly, too amusedly. “Don’t be ridiculous.”   
  
Tatsuya smiles again, and it’s soft and makes Shuuzou feel all too fond. “Think about it, Shuu. In a city with nearly four million people,  _we_  managed to meet. It has to be divine.”  
  
Again, Shuuzou doesn’t say anything. He doesn’t bring up the fact that the first time felt divine but the appeal wore off after the next twenty lifetimes and beyond. He doesn’t mention that fate only feels divine for the person who isn’t breaking their own heart over and over again.  
  
“Maybe,” Shuuzou says instead, and Tatsuya’s expression is curious, imploring. “Who cares?”  
  
He never stopped caring.

Tatsuya looks thoughtful. “I think I care,” he decides. “After all, I care about _you_.”

He never, ever stopped caring.

"Shut up."

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
Tatsuya has similar dreams, growing more vivid in detail for the next week and a-half and then he stops texting Shuuzou about the dreams, and then altogether.   
  
The last text is this:  _would you say you’re stubborn? or am I?_

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
He convinces himself that there’s no point to chasing anymore so he doesn’t chase, doesn’t pursue. He doesn’t text Tatsuya fifty times asking if he’s okay, if he’s sick, if he’s lost his phone again in some obscure location during a nighttime Pokemon GO walk.   
  
He waits though. He anticipates, too. And it’s twisted that he expects Tatsuya to come back because a lifetime isn’t complete without feeling the full ache of heartbreak head-on. _We’re not done here yet_ , he thinks, in spite of how terribly each lifetime ends. _We’re not done until I see you happy_. (The  _without me_ is left unspoken.)

And like always, Tatsuya does come back, eventually. He sends a text asking to meet up and Shuuzou doesn’t ask a single question when he agrees. Even when they meet up at the same diner where they last saw each other, Shuuzou doesn’t comment on the bags beneath Tatsuya’s eyes or the way the atmosphere sits heavy and thick on both of their shoulders.

One stray fry drowns in ketchup and Tatsuya takes it.

“Gross,” Shuuzou mutters.

“You love me,” Tatsuya replies teasingly, and then his laugh fades into something softer, more restrained. “Hey, Shuu—”

“Don’t put words in my mouth,” says Shuuzou, and maybe he says it too quickly, maybe he doesn’t want to hear what Tatsuya has to say.

Silence lingers for too long before Tatsuya taps his fingers idly against the table.  
  
“There are over four million people in Los Angeles and on the day I spend moping around trying to, out-of-character as it is, steal someone’s wallet because someone stole mine, I run into a guy that doesn’t feel like a stranger—even from the start.” Tatsuya laughs and his laugh is faint, quiet, _apologetic_ and Shuuzou hates it. “That has to be weird.”  
  
Quiet.

“It’s not weird,” Shuuzou says.  
  
“And after months of ignoring every shitty part of my life because I had someone reliable and genuine enough to distract me—after months of _peace_ and quiet, I start having increasingly vivid dreams about all of these past lives dream-me spent with dream-you.”  
  
Shuuzou tenses, and he forces himself to steady his gaze on the consternation on Tatsuya’s face. “What’s your point?”  
  
“I don’t know,” Tatsuya confesses, and even though he’s smiling, he looks terribly sorry, guilty. “I just feel like I’ve broken your heart before and I feel terrible about it. Because I wouldn’t do that to you—not now.”   
  
Quiet again. Both of their coffee mugs are untouched and the way Tatsuya is looking at Shuuzou is so unsuspecting, the furthest thing from expectant, that Shuuzou almost feels inclined to let him down.

 _Did you know_ , he wants to say, _that I used to keep count of how many times you broke my heart before I ran out of space on every inch of my brain’s walls_?

 _Did you know,_ he wants to say, _that despite all of the shit I went through loving you and only you for too fucking long, I never once thought I’d want to live a lifetime without seeing you in it?_

 _Do you know_ , he wants to say _, how long I’ve been waiting?_  
  
“What do you want to say?” he says instead.  
  
Tatsuya gazes at Shuuzou. “Nothing.” And then: “Just that I know I’m in love with you now.”

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
There are some things that aren’t meant to be explained. Some things don’t have answers, deeper meanings. Some things will remain unresolved and resolved at the same time for as long as they exist. And maybe, just maybe, this is a fluke. Maybe years down the road, one or the other will realize someone deserves better than what they have to offer. Maybe one or the other will realize they deserve more than what someone has to offer.   
  
But for now, there’s nothing to be explained. Fate is fickle; it works in foolishly complicated ways that are, at their roots, too simple for human comprehension.  
  
It makes no sense, after all, that, out out of over seven billion people in the world alone, Nijimura Shuuzou would find (would _seek_ ) Himuro Tatsuya time and time again.   
  
And maybe, for now, that’s good enough.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
“I guess I love you too.”

And it’s sweet, too good, too rewarding to see the way Tatsuya’s face brightens up. Shuuzou is hardly the type for romantic gestures, but he’s grateful too, _happy_ too; so he lifts up a sticky diner menu and leans forward out of his seat, using it to conceal their first official kiss _together_.

Together.

Tatsuya smiles into the kiss.

 _Together_. What an odd word.

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
How many lifetimes has it been? How long has been waiting for?

Does he care? Is it important, what's in the past? The accumulation of too many forsaken trials?

Maybe not. Maybe it doesn’t even matter anymore. Maybe it never did. 

 

 

 

* * *

 

 

  
This goodbye will be his hardest.  
  
(But he's not worried.)

**Author's Note:**

> written originally for saso.


End file.
